A Mother's Journey
by CaliforniaTexasNorthCarolina
Summary: I am going to publish this epic in stages. This is the story of Mrs. Everdeen, from the time Haymitch wins the Games through the series, from her perspective. Enjoy! And REVIEW often!
1. Chapter 1: There's a Spider!

**Chapter 1: There's a Spider!**

District 12 is mostly made up of dirt roads and wooden shanty houses. Only in my home of the Merchant sector are the dwellings made out of stone. It's often dark, on account of the coal dust from the mines lingering in the air. Drab. Dreary. But it's still home.

My name is Lillian Foley. I am of the Foleys, the apothecaries and one of the elite Merchant families of District 12. The other Merchant families include the Donners, the politically-minded Undersees, the physically attractive Fairchilds, and the success story of the Fletches. The Fletches used to be Seam - our moniker for the poorer people and miners in the district - but rose to prominence after their daughter, Cassiope Fletch, became District 12's first (and thus far, only) Victor of the Hunger Games. She won the 16th Hunger Games.

Oh, and there is also the Mellark family of bakers, as I am reminded when I step back into my brood's apothecary shop. My father, Barnabus, calls to me, "Lillian! Someone to see you, honey!"

I smile when I catch sight of my best friend.

Steffan Mellark and I have been close friends since we were small children. He often brings the bread to the other Merchant families to sell. Barnabus lets me handle these trades, because I am usually the best salesperson out of all of us. I take the bundle of bread from Steffan with a beaming grin.

"Thanks for these, Steff."

Steffan's smile back could light up the sun. "Always, Lillian."

All at once, I drop the breads onto the counter with a scream as I spy something behind Steffan. "Oh my God! It's a spider!"

"Where?" Steffan spins about.

"Back by the shelves!"

Steffan quickly spies the little insect - I hate spiders! - and crushes it under his boot before it can dive beneath the shelves. I breathe with relief as I gather up the breads to take into our back kitchen.

"Thanks, Steffan! I'll see you tomorrow!"

Steffan grins back, gives a little way, and slips out the back door of the shop.


	2. Chapter 2: There's a Burn

**Chapter 2: There's a Burn**

It is a slow day in the apothecary. We have only had a customer or two come in for medicine. Around lunchtime, the phone rings, and my father answers it. "Steffan's burned his hand on an oven? I'll send Lillian over right away." He hangs up. "Steffan burned his hand on an oven, honey. Can you go over and treat it?"

I grab my medicinal bag and head out the door. The bakery is only a piece away from the apothecary. Steffan's father lets me in the back way and then directs me to go up the stairs to the loft, where the Mellarks board. I find Steffan's room quickly.

I smile in amusement when I see him, nursing his injured hand. "You haven't burned anything since we were small, never mind yourself!"

Steffan just shrugs and stands, holding out his hand for me to wrap some ice to it with some gauze. I have to wrap it really tight, so I find myself standing really close to him.

After I have finished my work, I find myself staring deeply at Steffan. All at once, the loft seems to have heated by several degrees. Steffan and I are drawn closer together as if by a magnet. We hover, hesitatingly, our faces close together. At last, Steffan takes the initiative and presses his lips to mine in a kiss.

I gasp, and then moan, as I find myself kissing him back. I wrap my arms about his neck and pull him closer, deepening the kiss. Steffan soon has his arms about my waist. Our mouths open to each other, and our tongues engage with little resistance.

Steffan is now bending me back over his writing desk. His lips soon move to my face, then my neck, working down and past my collarbone. I arch into Steffan, my eyes wide. "St... Steff..."

Steffan simply replies by taking a nipple of my breasts in his mouth, through my clothes.

We are going to have sex. We are going to have sex unless I do something to stop this. So, I distract Steffan and his wandering hands by pulling his face off my breasts and crashing my lips back into his. He becomes so engrossed in just heatedly kissing me, that I make a quick decision to split the difference. Slipping my hand past the elastic of Steffan's pants, I grip his length in my palm and begin to rub him, stroke him vigorously. Steffan groans and bucks his hips into my hand.

"Lill... Lillian..." He orgasms in my hand a moment later. I smirk against his lips, pleased, and use his still form, recovering from the ejaculation, to break apart from the kiss and gently push him away. I then recover my faculties and adjust my clothing, which has become only slightly rumpled.

"Keep that ice on your hand for at least a week," I tell Steffan, as if nothing has happened. Then I leave the bakery.

* * *

That evening, we have closed up for the night when there is a knock at the back door. I open it to find Steffan. As soon as he sees me, he takes his free hand and holds up something to the light. A small object. I gasp a place a hand to my mouth when I see what it is. An engagement ring.

"Lillian, will you marry me?" he bravely asks.

Steffan has been my friend since I was small. And a part of me does love him, just... not in the way he wants me to. All through this afternoon, I pondered back over our kiss in the bakery, and came to the conclusion that the kiss was a mistake. So, I gently close his hand around the ring.

"Steffan... I can't. We're still teenagers; too young! And my family still needs me here." It isn't the truth, but I don't want to crush his heart further than I probably am.

Steffan still looks crestfallen. "I understand." He pecks me on the cheek before I can object and trudges sadly away into the night.


	3. Chapter 3: Hired Hand

**Chapter 3: Hired Hand**

I wake up one spring morning, several weeks after Steffan proposed to me, hearing the birds singing. Going out of our family's quarters in the loft - most Merchant families live above their storefronts - I pause in my restocking of prescriptions to glance out the window at my mother's gardens. She mostly grows herbs that can be put into our medicines and other healing products, with a little plot off to one side to grow some vegetables for our family meals. At this time of year, the plants are beginning to ripen, lying peacefully in the sun, undisturbed.

So it shocks me when I shift my eyes just a little downward to see a slightly unkempt young man rifling through our garden. I run to my father.

"Daddy! A dirty Seam miner is stealing our herbs and vegetables! Get your gun!"

But my father gives me a funny look, either not knowing what I'm talking about or he is completely unconcerned. I soon realize it's the latter. "Oh, honey, that's just Estes."

I wrinkle my nose in a frown. "Estes?"

"Estes Everdeen. He's the son of a Seam miner. Works down in the stafts too, part time, and he said he would like some extra work. I hired him as our gardener."

"Mother can do the gardening," I try to explain away.

"With all the house calls you and she have been getting lately? Lillian, it will be nice to have the extra hand."

* * *

So I acquiesce to letting a Seam miner hang around in our presence. Though wary at first, Estes doesn't bother me, only coming into the Apothecary to stock the shelves with the plants he's picked. The rest of the time, he is out in the garden, busy at work. Sometimes, while stocking shelves or on a break, I will watch him from the windows. One day, I hear a melodic sound come wafting in the open window. Glancing out, I realize it is Estes. Singing.

 _"Are you, are you coming to the tree, who strung up a man they say that murdered three. Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be if we met at midnight in the hanging tree..."_

It is like I am struck between the eyes. Never have I heard a voice sing as sweetly as that. Then again, I had heard rumors in school about some Seam boy being the star of the school choir. I wonder if Estes Everdeen fits that description? How could someone from such a coarse background bring such gentle sweetness and beauty to this backwater of a district?

* * *

Estes has been working for our family for several months when he comes to pick from the garden nursing an injured hand one weekend. I wonder if he got it caught in something while working in the mines during the week. Being a miner is dangerous, even deadly, work and I would not wish it on anyone. My heart goes out to him, and even though my neighbors have always said to never speak to a Seamer if you can avoid it, I soon head into the garden armed with an ice pack and some gauze.

"Did you get a burn?" I ask him.

He raises his eyes to me, and I marvel at how deep and gray they are. "Machine backed up. Plume of fire. You can never be too careful... I just got signed."

"Let me help you wrap it," I encourage him, and kneeling beside him in the soil, I press the ice pack to his hand and wrap it in the gauze to hold it in place. It is the exact same treatment that I gave Steffan Mellark for burning his hand on the oven, yet this care feels different somehow. And it's not just the fact that Estes and I are not kissing... this thought oddly makes me blush. Shaking my head to clear it, I finish the wrapping and sit back to examine my handiwork.

"You should leave that on for about a week. See if you can do simpler jobs that would require only one hand in the mines."

"Thank you," Estes smiles. I like his smile. "I owe you."

"Oh, no, really, it's fine... my mother and I take patients for free now and again, usually in dire circumstances, but this... is informal."

Estes just shakes his head. "I still owe you."

"What do you mean?" I frown. "Have you any money?" I quickly realize how my comment could be misconstrued, and desperately try to apologize. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to..."

"It's all right," Estes dismisses. "It's just that, where I come from in the Seam, people take a debt very seriously. We're always looking for a fair trade however we can find it. You healed my hand. There must be something I can do for you."

I sit back and think about this impromptu lesson Estes has taught me. I have never known much about the Seam, other than the conceptions taught to me by my parents. I always thought Seamers were hard-scrabble and uncivilized. That they would take something like a debt so seriously gives me a strange sort of comfort.

And now I realize: there _is_ something Estes can do for me...

"Will you sing?"

Estes raises an eyebrow at me and smirks. I flush. "I... I like to hear you sing. From the window."

So Estes grants my request: _"I'll know... when my love comes along... I'll know... when I see..."_


	4. Chapter 4: 50th Reaping

**Chapter 4: 50th Reaping**

Reaping Day is the one day a year when I get to sleep in. All the businesses are closed that day. And for us, if there is a patient, they are usually considerate enough to let it wait 24 hours.

The Hunger Games were created to punish the Twelve districts of Panem for an uprising that happened in the time of my grandparents. 24 tributes of teenage years are sent into an outdoor arena to fight to the death until one lone tribute - the Victor - remains to mentor the next year.

As I am herded in next to the other 17 year old girls, I spy several people in the crowd. Steffan Mellark with the 17 year old boys. Estes Everdeen with the 16 year old boys. Right next to me is my best friend Maysilee Donner, and I give her hand a squeeze.

The Mayor begins by reciting a speech about the Dark Days that led to the Games' creation. Then he reads the one name from District 12 that has come back alive:

"The Victor of the 16th Hunger Games: Cassiope Fletch!" The woman is only 50 years old herself. The only reason she's here is that the win was handed to her by the Gamemakers, who needed District 12 to have a Victor. At least, that's what Daddy says. No District still has goose egg as a winning record, but ours is the worst.

Our district escort, Mitzi Hoops, now bounds on stage and excitedly begins to select the four names for this year. Being the 50th incarnation, a special twist called a Quarter Quell is added every quarter century. I've never been alive for one, but this time, double the number of tributes are going in.

"Maysilee Donner!"

I, and not my best friend next to me, nearly topple over. I can only think to give the pretty blonde girl a hug before she weepingly takes the stage.

"Fern Avery!"

There is only momentary confusion as a second girl, a 14-year-old from the Seam, joins Maysilee.

Now the boys. "Grant Tylka!"

I know the Tylkas. They are swineherds. Technically Merchants, though poorer. Their pigs feed the whole District.

"Haymitch Abernathy!"

A looker from the 16-year-old Seamers mounts the stage with the coldest persona I have ever seen. I've heard stories about the oldest Abernathy boy - the son of the district tanner. Stories of anger and fighting and resentment.

All good things for the arena. I wonder if District 12 could have a winner this year.

* * *

My family and I are first in line to visit Maysilee. And I tearfully hug her goodbye. As I am leaving the holding room, I bump into Steffan. Since he proposed to me, we have both been trying to go on as normally as possible with each other, and I think we have been moderately successful. At least I don't detect any awkwardness between us.

"Hey, Lillian, do you want to watch the Games with me?"

I blink. "Sure," annoyed with myself that my head has to remind me this isn't a date. Who would see the Hunger Games as an opportunity for a date?

Over the next four days, we only have to be in the Square for coverage in the evenings. And if there is a medical excuse, almost everyone in Twelve can afford a projector to watch from home. But everyone has to watch the Games, no matter where you are. It's mandatory programming, punishable by death at the hands of the Peacekeepers.

The first night, the same day as the Reaping, we see our tributes unloaded off the trains with Cassiope. After an unseen beautification by their stylists, all those Reaped participate in a Tribute Chariot Parade in the City Circle of the Capitol. President Snow, our leader brand new this year, welcomes them and then the poor devils are sent into a brand new Training Center.

Where they commence training the next day. There are tributes from Districts 1 and 2 known as Careers who will certainly do better than ours. At least we at home don't have to watch; cameras aren't allowed in the Center.

At the end of three days, the tributes have a final evaluation with the Gamemakers, the planners of the Games. All the Careers get scores of 11. Fern and Grant get 7s for us. Maysilee a 9. Haymitch Abernathy... a 10?! I see Estes roar along with the Seamers while we Merchants gasp and whisper to each other.

The fourth and final evening are the Tribute interviews with Caesar Flickerman. I simply wait until Maysilee is called second to last. It's rude, but the Merchants are hoping for Maysilee to win. Fern and Grant, at their young ages are going to die. No one under the age of 15 has ever won the Games. Ever. Maysilee comes off as shy but sweet, just as I've always known her.

Then it's the Abernathy boy's turn. "So, Haymitch: how does it feel knowing there will be 100% more tributes than usual?"

The Seam looker (though not as handsome as Estes - wait... did I just think that?) doesn't miss a beat as he shrugs. "I don't see how it will make much difference. They'll all be 100% as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same."

The Capitol audience eats it up, and Haymitch smirks. Cocky. Arrogant. Indifferent. The attitude of a Career tribute. No - the attitude of a Victor.

And I go to bed that night wondering if I really have seen the last of Haymitch Abernathy here in District 12.


	5. Chapter 5: Cup of Poison

**Chapter 5: Cup of Poison**

I wake up early on the morning of the first day of the Games. I follow my family into the Square, where a huge Jumbotron screen has been set up. Soon, Steffan joins me. For a moment, I bizarrely think he is going to do something like kiss me or hold my hand in greeting, but he doesn't.

"Ready?" is all he asks.

I sigh. "Just another Games."

At 10 A.M. precisely, the screens showing the arena go live. The sheer number of tribute pedestals - double a normal year's numbers - is crippling. There is hardly any elbow room for the tributes as they ring a Cornucopia set in the middle of a meadow.

A sickly sweet Meadow. Forests and trees surround the expanse on all sides, and on one border, there is a snow-capped mountain.

It is picturesque. Almost pretty. One might have a false sense of security in there. And critically forget that this is a fight to the death.

But the tributes don't let us forget. And that holds especially true for Haymitch Abernathy. When the gong goes off, he is away from his pedestal and with a backpack in hand, fleeing for the woods before some tributes have even gotten a hold of themselves. Nevertheless, eighteen out of the 48 tributes die that first day.

Standing in the Square all day, especially when there is no action, can get boring very quickly. You aren't allowed to leave the viewing areas unless for a really good reason, which is pretty much only if you have to go to the bathroom. And even then, there are Port-a-Pottys riding the viewing area. Regardless, standing in one spot can take quite the toll on your circulation. So, I guard against it by hopping between standing with Steffan in the Merchant camp and going over to the Seam camp. This is done even though my father warns me to be careful.

I quickly find Estes Everdeen in a crowd that is overwhelmingly supporting the mysterious Seam boy who has failed to die yet. "What do you know about Haymitch Abernathy?" I ask him curiously.

"I know he'd punch you in the face sooner than shake your hand," Estes replies bluntly. "He's a fighter. Kind of crass, and a bit of a boor. But those are the perceptions of his critics. He is very smart," Estes taps a finger to his head with a smile. "I bet he could actually win it all!"

And indeed, Haymitch is smart. He is not tempted by the bounties of the arena, which we quickly learn are deadly poisonous to anyone who ingests them. A couple days into the Games, the snow-capped mountain turns into a raging volcano that kills ten more tributes, including all but five of the dozen or so Careers this year. And also Fern Avery, one of our girl tributes. Add the few who have killed themselves accidentally with poison, and there are only sixteen tributes left by the time the first week of the arena is out.


	6. Chapter 6: Abernathy Grit

**Chapter 6: Abernathy Grit**

It is already Day 11 before we see anything moderately interesting out of Haymitch Abernathy, who has stubbornly in the same direction he took off in at the start of the Games.

Three of the five Career survivors suddenly encounter him in the woods. Haymitch pulls a trusty knife from his back pocket - he is the son of the district tanner. The first Career - an Asian boy - attacks him with a giant branch, but Haymitch takes two swipes at him and a kick in the stomach to dispatch him. The poor boy takes his own sweet time in dying, hands to his throat, while Haymitch tussles with a second, white Career.

This second opponent is more evenly matched for our rough-and-tumble Seam male tribute, but Haymitch does not give up. After rolling around on the ground for a bit, and one pregnant moment where the Career tries to push Haymitch's own knife into his throat, Haymitch gets the upper hand, flipping his pinned position and slashing the blade across the Career's neck.

He is only just recovering when the third Career takes the forgotten branch from his fallen ally and slams it into Haymitch's face.

Haymitch is brought into the execution position, and the final Career is about to deliver the death blow when -

He suddenly coughs up blood. Feels behind his head for a moment before keeling over to one side almost comically, dead as a doornail. His life spared by mere seconds, Haymitch scrambles away from the corpse, confused.

Maysilee Donner - the only other District 12 tribute still alive - emerges from the trees. She has a blowdart in hand, and I have already seen her use the darts, dipped into the arena's poisons, to chilling effect. "We'd live longer with two of us," she rationalizes.

"Guess you just proved that," Haymitch concedes, holding out his hand. "Allies?"

Amazingly, she nods.

By now back next to Steffan Mellark in the Merchant stands, he and I look at each other. A Seamer and Merchant from the poorest district teaming up? What does this mean? If my father, right behind us, has an opinion, he doesn't offer it. But he would probably say it is anything but good.

Yet, there are still thirteen tributes left in the arena, including Haymitch and Maysilee. Maybe it would be best to wait and see.

* * *

As Haymitch and Maysilee proceed, I jump more often between the two warring camps, and thus between Steffan and Estes. And as our last two tributes proceed, they actually fight better as a team. Together, they take out three tributes from District 9, then another from District 10 and a fifth tribute from District 11. This dazzling display of murder catapults both our surviving tributes into the Final Eight. In a year with double numbers, this is downright miraculous, when in any normal year, even getting one District 12 tribute to this milestone would be remarkable.

It only makes me wonder that the brash Seam boy, or my Merchant best friend, could become Cassiope Fletch's heir. Either one of them could be the next Victor of the Hunger Games.


	7. Chapter 7: The Victor

**Chapter 7: The Victor**

There are only five tributes left. The Career girl from 1. A boy from 5. A Girl from 7.

And Haymitch Abernathy and Maysilee Donner.

Pundits are wondering just when this last alliance of the Games is going to break off. Even Maysilee seems to be wondering, as Haymitch is still (!) proceeding in the same direction in which he began the Games. When his partner refuses to go on without an answer, he simply tells her, "Because it has to end somewhere, right? The arena can't go on forever."

Steffan and I look at each other, baffled by this cryptic message. I look across the expanse to Estes, but he just shrugs helplessly too.

Finally, our tributes use a blowtorch from a dead tribute's pack to get past some hedges. And they come out on a cliff. The edge of the arena. And from the way the camera seems to be bouncing, I wonder if this milestone was meant to be found at all.

"That's all there is, Haymitch. Let's go back."

But the stoic Seam boy shakes his head. "No. I'm staying here."

"Fine. There's five of us left. I don't want it to come down to you and me."

Actually, I would, because we would at least be guaranteed a win we have waited decades for, but Haymitch just shrugs flippantly.

I hear my father sigh with relief behind me as Maysilee walks away. But I am only just beginning to relax when I hear gasps from the crowd.

I look up to see Haymitch studying a pebble curiously. I must have missed something. What happened? But Haymitch merely lobs a boulder the size of his fist over the cliff. When it bounces back into his waiting hand, he begins to laugh.

That's when Maysilee screams.

There is nothing Haymitch can do to stop the pink birds with sharp beaks as they fly away, from where they attacked Maysilee just yards from where she and her ally parted ways. Haymitch holds her hand as she dies. BOOM.

Four tributes left.

"We might as well lose. We're going to lose," my father groans.

I am shocked by his words. And what they might mean. Does he actually want Haymitch to die? Indeed, the Merchants around me look like they have lost all of our tributes already. Their resignation and quickness to give up on Haymitch infuriates me.

So much so, that I publicly make a point of going over to Seam side, joining Estes to root for Haymitch.

The boy from 5 is hacked to death by the last Career. The girl from 7 is eaten by carnivorous squirrels. Both of these districts have had a healthy crop of Victors of the years, so for Haymitch to outlast them both is quite a feat. He is now in the Top Two - not seen since Cassiope Fletch herself won. District 1 and District 12 battling for the crown. Haymitch is the clear underdog.

But when the final battle happens, Haymitch gives as good as he gets. He even takes out the Career's eye.

But then she sends an axe into his stomach.

Haymitch makes for his cliff - the one he spent the entire Quell looking for. He barely makes it with his intestines still in, collapsing on the edge as the Career's axe sails over his head. She simply waits, thinking she can just outlast him.

Fool. Her expression is of disbelieving horror as she is too late to avoid her own axe going into her temple.

BOOM.

The Seam erupts, the Mechants swear. But I am cheering. We have a second Victor! At last! I barely hear Claudius Templesmith announce Haymitch's victory.

Suddenly, I feel a hand dragging me out of the square and into a back alley. I look up to see Estes.

"Estes, what are you doing...? Mmmmm!"

He kisses me soundly on the lips. And though I am frozen with shock at first, I quickly melt in the arms of my handsome Seam gardener and kiss him back. "Mmmm..."

When Estes begins to have his hands wander down past my waist, I don't hesitate to hitch my leg to his hips. Estes hoists me up the wall of the alley, and soon I feel something deep inside my core break, as a mysterious entity invades my most sacred spot. But I welcome it as I roll my hips against his.

"Uhhhhh... HUUHHHHHH! UHHHHHHH! OHHHHH... Estes..." At last, I cry out as I orgasm, my juices exploding all around me. I knew from my Healing profession and Family Planning classes in school that it was going to happen. I just never thought it would feel so good.

Estes and I share a chaste kiss after he and I come together. We have every reason to celebrate.


	8. Chapter 8: Victor Intercession

**Chapter 8: Victor Intercession**

Haymitch has the crown placed on his head at his final interview with Caesar Flickerman. Then he and Cassiope Fletch - his Master - board the train for home.

They arrive back in District 12 at night. The Seamers mob Haymitch and carry him away, their hero, when he disembarks. Our second Victor is presented with a gold medal, as is custom, which the Merchants can barely stand.

Meanwhile, Estes and I enter a secret relationship. For two years, we see each other in secret, sharing dates between the Seam and the Merchant sector.

The more time we spend together, the more I fall deeply in love with this man, even though he is below my social station. But love is not blind to petty things like where you were born, right? So, when Estes asks me to marry him, I say Yes.

Of course, getting married will be dangerous. It is too risky to go to the Justice Building and sign a marriage license. Thankfully, there is another way. It is tradition for couples getting married to toast a bit of bread over the fire and share it. It's called a Toasting and no bride or groom feels married in District 12 without it.

So, Estes and I perform a toasting over a bonfire behind my house, right at the edge of my garden one night, while my parents are out. And when he kisses me, I feel more married than any slip of paper could make me.

Then, we run.

It doesn't take long for my father and some of his friends to find the remains of our union and work out what has happened. But when they do, voices of protest go up in the Town in the distance. I see the faint glow of torches. I turn to my husband. "Quick! This way! We've gotta hide!"

District 12's Victors Village stands proud and silent and imposing on the crest of a hill. It also feels desolate skill, despite the fact that a middle-aged woman and now a teenager live here. Estes and I run up to one of the only two houses occupied.

Haymitch looks dazed and confused when he sees us. He recognizes Estes first. "Estes? Estes Everdeen?"

"Haymitch, you have to help us! Hide us! Please!" I beg.

"We just had a Toasting," Estes adds, taking my hand. "We're in love."

Haymitch stares past us, hearing the shouts moving their way through the district. "Aw, shit! Well, get in here, for heaven's sake!"

Haymitch leads us to a dark room that has hardly anything in it. The only piece of... well, anything I see is a writing desk with a phone on top of it.

"Stay in here!" the Victor orders. "And whatever you do, don't touch that phone!"

"Why? Is it bugged?" I shrink away from it.

"I've checked that damn thing up and down for listening devices, and haven't found any! But that doesn't mean the Capitol isn't watching me," Haymitch explains darkly. "Just don't make a sound!"

He leaves us in darkness. I hear his front door opening as he leaves his mansion, but after that, Estes and I can't tell what is being said or what might be happening. What seems like many minutes later, Haymitch comes back. "All clear!"

He leads us out into an empty Village, where Cassiope Fletch now waits, her eyes filled with concern. We're safe... for now. I peck Haymitch on the cheek. "Thanks, Haymitch."

"You're welcome," he actually smiles.

Estes shakes his hand. "Thank you, Mr. Abernathy!"

"It's Haymitch. None of that formal bullshit, Estes. We're peers."

And my husband and I slip out of the Village.

* * *

We make love in the woods. Consummate our marriage in the wild, since society won't accept us.

But that doesn't mean they won't find us.

My father's torch light soon falls on us. And when he sees that I have been with a Seam boy, he flies into a rage. "Dishonor! Dishonor, dishonor, dishonor! You are dead to me!" he bellows. And he storms away, leaving me with my husband... but also leaving me in tears.


	9. Chapter 9: Swimming Lessons and Fertilit

**Chapter 9: Swimming Lessons and Fertility**

I stand at the edge of the lake, watching my husband splash around like a fish. "Are you sure about this, honey?"

"Of course I'm sure, Lill!" he laughs, "Come out to me!"

I manage what Estes terms a passable doggy paddle and reach him in the middle of the body of water. Though beyond the fence of District 12, Estes has come here often enough. There is even a ramshackle cabin where he has spent nights sometime, on the edge of the water.

In a place where my feet can't touch the bottom, Estes holds me gently, allowing me to float in safety. Pretty soon, we are kissing. And being practically naked as we are, my husband is soon making love to me on the rocks at the edge of the lake. I thrash against him, eyes wide and moaning. "Oh, Estes..."

I cum. My husband soon ejaculates into me. No protection, but maybe... just maybe...

I fail to get pregnant. Again. We've been trying in the year or so since we got married, but have had no luck. Finally, in desperation, I sneak over to the place I once called home, the group of people I once called my family, and steal some herbs from them. Herbs that could help Estes and I conceive.

* * *

Not long after, Estes and I are invited to Steffan Mellark's wedding. He is marrying a Merchant woman, though her family is not as elite as his is. Or mine was. Her name is Paula. Paula something.

As I hug Steffan to offer him congratulations at the reception, I can tell that his new bride does not like me giving even this platonic gesture at all. She seems cool, almost, when I meet her. Almost paranoid, somehow. I can't explain it fully, but there is a darkness about her...

But we don't have to be friends. We don't even have to interact. Little do I know then how our destinies will still be intertwined.


	10. Chapter 10: Katniss, the New Baby

**Chapter 10: Katniss, the New Baby**

At last, about five years after Estes and I get married, I fall pregnant and give birth to a beautiful baby girl. Estes says she has my attractive facial features, but the baby - whom we name Katniss - is even more striking with the Seam looks of her father.

One day, when Estes returns from his weekend morning hunts (he rises early on Saturdays), I join him with Katniss as he goes to make his trades in the Hob, the illegal black market in District 12. While there, we run into two famous faces at the bar.

Cassiope Fletch and Haymitch Abernathy - District 12's Victors and heroes - are being attended to by Ripper, the liquor lady. I hug Cassiope when she waves me over and give Haymtich a friednly smile. "Hello, Haymitch."

"Hello, Lillian," he nods. He doesn't appear to be drunk yet.

Cassiope gasps at the bundle in my arms. "Is that...? How old is she?"

I beam. "Three months."

"You're glowing." We girls look back to Haymitch at his comment, which he gives with a smirk that is almost warm. "The way you look at the little tyke. You're glowing."

I blush even as I try to hide my smile. "Estes would say something like that when I was carrying her."

My husband now approaches, as if on cue, and gives me deep kiss. "Time to go, my love. Thanks, Cassiope, Haymitch."

"Bye!" The Victors wave us away.

* * *

It saddens and shakens me when, only a few months after that encounter, Cassiope Fletch dies. We hold a fine funeral for her, we folk of the Seam - my adopted people. Haymitch officiates.

As the years move on and the seasons change, Estes begins to take our toddler and soon small child out into the woods with him to hunt. He teaches her how to swim as I sit on the edge of the lake, laughing as Katniss reaches my arms. Estes shows our daughter the plant for which she is named, saying, "As long as you find yourself, you'll never starve."

During the weekdays, Estes goes to work in the mines while I stay home and take care of our child. I soon begin a lucrative Healing practice that now cares for the Seam instead of the Merchants.

It's not an easy life. But I am so happy, that sometimes I forget how financially miserable we are.


	11. Chapter 11: I've Lost Him

**Chapter 11: I've Lost Him**

Estes and I struggle for a time to get pregnant again. But finally, when Katniss is about four years old, we give birth to a second daughter who carries more of my Merchant features. We name her Primrose, after another beautiful flower. Estes has always loved flowers and has been sure to pass on their beauty and usefulness to our children.

The days are long for my husband at the mines. Every night when he comes home, I give him a bath to wash away the soot and grime.

One day, Katniss and Primrose are both in school. Katniss is 11 and Prim is 7. Suddenly, after seeing a patient off - it's been a slow and quiet day - I suddenly hear a rumble and the alarm from the mines sound. There's been another collapse or accident.

They've happened before, and they'll happen again. But all the same, I run with concerned vigor over to the mine entrance. One by one, elevator loads bring up miners, some healthy, some injured. But Estes has always been among them... where is he?

When I see my husband, among the bodies now being hauled up, my world ends. I lose it.

I cradle his frame in my arms, kiss his lips. But he can't come back, he can't be saved. What will I tell the girls when they get home from school today? How can I tell them their Daddy is gone?

* * *

Katniss accepts the medal from the Mayor for all of us, where I can't. The mine collapse - one of the worst in living memory - has been deemed a district tragedy.

But I can see, even in my mourning state behind my black shawl, that there are families worse off than us. One woman has four children crowded around her, and looks like her fifth one will pop out any day, I feel moved to go over to her and console her. She introduces herself as Hazelle Hawthorne, and I offer to help her deliver the baby when it comes.


	12. Chapter 12: If I Fail, I Give Up

**Chapter 12: If I Fail, I Give Up**

I know that I need to move on. That I need to live. But I can't.

Nothing is beautiful without my Estes. Even our daughters are a painful reminder of him. I fall into a deep depression, and begin to withdraw. I am barely able to keep open the Healing business, my work being my one escape. Katniss takes over the mothering duties of raising Primrose.

Money is tight, and only getting tighter. I don't try to stop Katniss when she begins going out into the woods to hunt on her own. She always comes back, and manages to bring food and some money from trades with her.

But it isn't enough. There is only one option left. and if it will help, I must do it.

There is a robust prostitution ring in District 12. It is led by our Head Peacekeeper Cray, who has largely been unsupervised in this backwater of a district, leading to rampant corruption. Still, many desperate girls can make a pretty penny from giving themselves.

So, one night, after the girls have gone to sleep, I don one of my old Merchant dresses and join these women.

Cray is pleased to see fresh blood, even if I am middle-age. I am only 36 years old. Many of his soldiers jostle to have me, a Seam woman who still looks like a pretty Merchant and who has birthed and nursed two babies in her prime. At last, Cray makes my choice of a mate for me.

"Darius! Go lie with this dame, boy!"

Darius looks to be only 17 years old. A new recruit, surely. But he is filled out and muscular for someone his age. A chiseled jaw. I have to admit, he's handsome.

Sighing, I take his hand and guide him into the private room of the Peacekeeper barracks reserved for us. The men hoot and holler after us until I silence this by slamming the door to give us and my... one-night stand some privacy.

I pull Darius to me and crash my lips into his before he can say a word. Our lips soon flow and open sensuously to each other with an easy give-and-take. Darius moans into my mouth, and his hands soon wander. His touch is cautious, as if he is not sure what to do. He's only a boy! Has never been with a woman yet...

So I help him along. I raise my leg to his waist. When his hands squeeze my ass and he struggles to pick me up, I nudge him so that he loses his balance and flops us both down on the bed. Quickly, I pin the young man to the sheets and gallingly move to straddle him. Sitting atop him, my thighs splayed across his hips and middle, I begin to undress him. Soon, I come down on him, rolling my center in a wave-like motion from my ass and up my back. Darius responds by thrusting into me upward. It feels tight, painful at first, since I have not had sex with anyone other than my husband. But not long after, the pleasure comes.

"GUHHHH... RRRRRRR... UGGGGGGHHHHH!" I shake and moan. At last, I orgasm. And he ejaculates into me. I let him, even though he didn't use protection. It is his first time after all; that much is clear. And I don't someone my age could still conceive, especially after all the effort it took to get pregnant with two of Estes's children.

I sleep beside Darius that night. But it is still dark when I leave him and begin the walk of shame back to my house. I feel dirty and like a liar. He may be dead, but I still feel as though I have betrayed my husband, been unfaithful to him!

Never. Never again.


	13. Chapter 13: Breads and Dandelions

**Chapter 13: Breads and Dandelions**

After trying and failing at the prostitution possibility, I feel scarred and all but dead inside. I never speak a word of my tryst with that young red-headed Peacekeeper to either of my girls. Pretty soon, I become nothing more than a vegetable, sitting in my rocking chair and ignoring the life still around me.

Katniss continues to single-handedly be the head of the household. She hunts and her provisions likely save my life and Prim's. But the harshest seasons leave Katniss struggling. One rainy day, she tries selling Prim's old baby clothes in desperation where selling meat so far has failed this winter. She comes back that evening with the baby clothes sadly still in hand... but also with a piece of soggy and burnt bread. She says a boy threw it to her.

Bread... the bakery... could it be that one of Steffan's three sons showed mercy to my eldest child?

Then, the next morning, Katniss comes home from school with some news. "I saw a dandelion today!"

"Oh, that's nice, dear," I say absent-mindedley, wondering where she is going with this.

"It was like a sign, Mama!" Katniss continues. "I know what I have to do: I have to hunt earlier, harder and longer."

And she does. Overtime, I begin to watch with pride as Katniss turns herself into a huntress better than even her father and risks her own life to feed us.


	14. Chapter 14: My Girls Reaped

**Chapter 14: My Girls Reaped**

Katniss returns from the Hob that fateful morning with some money from her latest trade. Even in her tombyoish attire of my husband's old hunting jacket, she still looks striking. But if I dared to tell her that, my eldest girl would just frown or perhaps even scowl in hostile confusion. She has never been one for dressing up and boys.

But she knows a fine deal when she sees it, and so it surprises me when she presents Primrose with what looks like a piece of jewelry. "It's a mockingjay pin. As long as you have it, nothing bad will happen to you. I promise." Then she smiles and tucks in Primrose's shirt beneath her skirt. "Better tuck in that tail, Little Duck."

"I have something for you, too," I pipe up to Katniss's back.

Katniss doesn't even turn to acknowledge me. "OK," she stammers out almost awkwardly; there's a hint of wariness in her voice.

Even so, she lets me dress her in a blue gown that was once mine when I was her age and a Merchant girl. I do up her hair in the signature braid down her back and we both try to admire ourselves in the mirror. I give a hint of a smile; Katniss just looks at herself blankly. "Now you look beautiful, too," I say softly.

"I wish I looked like you," Prim admits from the settee.

"Oh no! I wish I looked like you, Little Duck!" Katniss insists. And perhaps she means it. Prim could pass for a Merchant's child, if everyone didn't know she was mine and my scandalous history. We head out for the Square.

Today is Reaping Day for the 74th Hunger Games. It is Prim's first year to be eligible, at 12. At 16, Katniss is a tall statuesque beauty, and I wonder when some boy might try to court her. Pity that poor fool, though. I once heard Katniss vow to her hunting partner and the only boy she lets near her, Gale Hawthorne, that she will never marry nor have kids. I hope she might fall for the Hawthorne boy though, but I doubt it. They just seem like platonic friends.

After my girls check in, I stand off with the parents to the side and watch them take their places according to age group. Katniss has survived four of her seven Reapings thus far, though her chances to make it through again seem decent, even with the fact that she has taken out tessarae to feed us.

Mayor Undersee reads the Dark Days speech, and then announces the names of past District 12 Victors: "The Victor of the 16th Hunger Games!" I remember Cassiope as she was when I had the honor of her holding my baby that one day in the Hob: happy.

"The Victor of the 50th Hunger Games, or Second Quarter Quell: Haymitch Abernathy!" My poor old classmate. He's a drunk and a shell of the brash young man he once was. There has never been another champion from 12 after him.

Then Effie Trinket, our district escort, selects from the Girls' Reaping Bowl: "Primrose Everdeen!"

I feel like I am underwater, as I watch my baby girl head shakingly for the stage and likely death. It seems as though my ears have stopped working, for I barely hear Katniss cry out, "Prim!" as she leaves her place in line out-of-turn. Then, she says the dreaded words: "I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"

And suddenly my eldest girl has taken the youngest's place. A District 12 volunteer has never happened. Ever. Only the Career districts ever volunteer. But Effie looks delighted at the excitement as she now selects from the boys:

"Peeta Mellark!"

I find Steffan in the crowd. He gives away nothing on his face, unlike his youngest son (Peeta, I think his name is?), who seems stunned as he climbs the podium. My daughter and the youngest son of my former best friend are then whisked into the Justice Building.

* * *

Prim and I are the first ones in line to see Katniss. No one lines up behind us before we are ushered in, but I hope more people will come to see my daughter off. Maybe some of her customers from the Hob.

Prim is inconsolable as she blubbers, "Just try to win; if you can!" She gives Katniss back the mockingjay pin, as a token. "To protect you."

Then Katniss rounds on me, her gaze steely and hard. Uh oh. "You have to take care of her. You can't zone out again."

I nod. "I know; I was ill..." I try to excuse lamely.

"No, you can't! Not like when Dad died." She has never forgiven me for that, and probably never will. But she gives me a correct hug. And then we are dragged out. I only get a glimpse of Gale Hawthorne approaching the door as Prim and I are hustled down the hall.

* * *

Unlike when I was a little girl, we are not required to return to the Square in the evenings. But we are still required to view the Games coverage. Thankfully, Prim and I were able to afford enough for a projector from the money Katniss has earned for her hunts. We now use this, projecting onto the wall opposite our kitchen table.

Katniss and Peeta's competition is fierce. The blonde boy from 2 will probably be a hands-down favorite for the Victor's Crown. The black boy from 11 is also imposing. The girl from 5 sly and elusive.

The Chariot Parades are first that initial night. And amazingly, Katniss and Peeta steal the show with fiery costumes very different from the coal ones we are used to seeing year after year. I don't know how he does it, but Peeta somehow convinces my daughter to hold hands with him, as a team. Katniss would be caught dead holding hands with a boy, so I am amazed when she acquiesces. President Snow gives his speech in the City Circle, and the tributes are whisked into the Training Center.

Over the next three days, Prim and I busy ourselves with our Healing work, only catching Recap coverage at night. At the end of the three days, the Training Scores are broadcast. Peeta gets an 8, while my girl pulls...

An 11! She even beat Cato!

Prim squeals, and even though it is foolish of me to do so, I begin to hope that I will see my firstborn alive again.

* * *

The fourth and final night is the tribute interviews with Caesar Flickerman. Cato, the blonde boy from 2, is arrogant. The girl from 5 is shy and does not mince words. Neither does the boy from 11, Thresh.

When Katniss comes out, my jaw hits the floor. She looks stunningly beautiful in a red dress with fiery accents. And others must think so too, for I feel a wave of anger and protectiveness as the camera catches that beast, Cato, with his hands brazenly down his pants.

Katniss does well, for being such a taciturn person. But the real star of the show is Peeta Mellark, Steffan's youngest boy. He charms Caesar into asking him if there is a special girl back home. Peeta tries to dodge the question, then finally opens up:

"Well, there is this one girl that I've had a crush on forever. But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the Reaping."

Caesar encourages him to win, but... "Winning's not gonna help me at all... because she came here with me."

Prim squeals like a little girl, but then nervously looks to me for my reaction. I gasp and my eyes fill with tears. Poor boy! She's going to kill him for that. Like father, like son, I suppose. I don't know what it is about us Everdeen women that makes the Mellark men go haywire.

But like Steffan before him, Peeta is even more destined to fail.

* * *

 **Katniss's POV**

He doesn't come back into the penthouse until late that night. Effie and Haymitch have already retired to their respective chambers. Peeta is nursing his injured hand, the one he sliced after I pushed him into a pot in rage after her confessed his love for me in front of the nation. Upon seeing me, he freezes, his eyes wary like prey afraid of getting attacked again.

"How's your hand?" I ask softly.

"Better," he gets out.

An awkward pause. "I'm sorry I pushed you."

Peeta just shrugs. "You were upset. I didn't clear it with you. Anybody would be upset."

Another silence. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"

"It doesn't matter, Katniss." He glances out the window to the already crowded streets down below. "I've never been a contender in these Games anyway."

"That's no way to be thinking!" I gawk.

"Why not? It's true. District 12 will finally have a winner this year. But it won't be me. It'll be you. My own mother said so."

I am struck dumb by this admission, even more than when Peeta said he loved me.

"I just want to show them... that they don't own me," Peeta relays. "If I'm gonna die... I wanna still be me."

I stare at him for a moment. He really thinks he's going to die. It's like he's already given up. I shake my head to clear it, and gaze at him hard, my face neutral but also serious and practical. No-nonsense.

"Kiss me," I order. Peeta turns and gapes at me. "It might be your last chance. So... kiss me," I command.

Peeta reaches me in a few strides. Cupping my face in his hands, he kisses my lips firmly and soundly and eagerly. And because he might die tomorrow, I accept the gesture I directed out of him and kiss him back. Give him a kiss in return. A kiss to take with him into the arena, for when he dies. Our heads thrash from side to side as the kiss deepens, becomes more passionate. Our mouths open to each other without words and I feel Peeta's tongue enter my mouth. Feel my tongue enter his. Peeta's arms wrap around my waist and he pulls me closer.

At long last, we break apart, breathing hard. "Good night," I whisper and extract myself from him, retreating to my chambers.


	15. Chapter 15: Progeny Sacrificed

**Chapter 15: Progeny Sacrificed**

 **Lillian's POV**

Primrose and I rise early. Though we have the option to go into the Square to face our neighbors, as the Peacekeepers will surely want, I know I cannot. I would be too wracked with nerves, and I am sure the Mellarks would agree. So we stay in our house and be sure to have the projector tuned to the Games at all time.

At 10 A.M., we are seated at our kitchen table. I watch the screen with grim trepidation. Primrose eyes me almost sadly, morosely, the way a child would. But who can blame her? She doesn't want to see her sister potentially - probably - die.

The screens pick up on my eldest almost right away, no doubt because of her high training score and the interview that she did unusually well in. I scan for Peeta, out of respect for Steffan, but I don't find him.

At least not before the gong rings out.

Peeta takes off into the trees immediately, without going for a weapon. But my daughter goes for a backpack. She barely gets it over the boy from District 9, who is knifed by chance at the hands of Clove, the girl from 2. Then, my heart goes into my throat as she hurls a blade at my child. Katniss blocks it with the backpack and then takes off running into the trees and freedom from the Bloodbath already starting.

A backpack and a knife. She didn't do too bad. And she's still alive.

Katniss wanders the thick woods that encompass most of the arena throughout the day. When night falls, she burrows high into a tree. I've known her to do that sometimes, when she gets caught out late on a hunt, and would rather not wake us up coming in after dark. Plus, risk getting caught by the Peacekeepers.

A short distance away from her place in the still evening, Prim and I spy a campfire's glow. I want to groan at the idiocy. Any tribute who makes a fire must want to die.

And indeed, it does not take long for the Careers to find her, this poor girl from District 8. I am shocked beyond belief when I see it is Peeta who draws the knife across her throat. How did he get in the Career alliance? I don't know, but as the pack passes dangerously close to where my daughter is perched in her tree with baited breath, Cato announces his rationale for keeping Peeta on board, and thus, alive:

"He's our best chance of finding her."

I fume. Is Peeta going to stoop so low as to hand my child over to that monster Cato? God knows what the blonde brute would do to her if he ever did get his hands on her. I thought Peeta was in love with my eldest girl? He would have been a worthy suitor, one who I would have more than approved of. But now, I am not so sure.

The faces - twelve of them - appear in the sky: the girl from 3. Both from 4. The boy from 5. Both from 6. Both from 7. Both from 8. Both from 9. And the girl from 10. That's it.

* * *

The next morning, we rise and turn on the projector to see that the cameras happen to be on Katniss.

Getting knocked out of her tree by a raging fireball.

The Gamemaker trap rains down on my daughter as she runs and weaves and zigzags through the underbrush. At last, she is paused when one fireball barely grazes her thigh, enough to wound her and slow her down. She manages to take refuge under a rocky outcropping as the attack subsides, before eventually finding a nearby lake to cool the burn in. I know from experience that water won't be enough. She needs ointment for that burn. And quickly. And it can only come from a sponsor.

Suddenly, I hear a whoop and my stomach turns nauseous as I see that Cato and his band have found my girl. They chase Katniss through the woods a distance and up a tree, trapping her there like a raccoon. Cato tries to climb up, to do god-knows-what to Katniss before killing her, but the tree won't hold his weight. The blonde beauty from District 1, Glimmer, tries to shoot Katniss with a bow. How ironic. But she is awful with the weapon. Katniss is proficient in it - I know from having watched her for years - and this girl doesn't know the first thing about how to handle a bow. She predictably misses.

Peeta finally manages to talk the boy from 1, Marvel, off the ledge. "Let's just wait her out and deal with her in the morning."

The Career set up camp right at the base of the tree, with Marvel as guard. But he soon falls asleep like the rest of them.

During the night, Katniss receives an unexpected assist from Rue, the little one from 11 that could be Primrose with darker skin. Spying a tracker jacker nest on a branch near her, Katniss takes the knife she got from the Bloodbath and saws the branch through, even if it takes her almost all night.

I watch nervously. I've treated tracker jacker stings before. And those Careers are going to be in for a hell of a time when -

The branch falls as the pack begins to stir. The nest explodes right on them, and the Careers are awoken rudely, having no choice but to make a mad dash for the lake that is near the Cornucopia. Katniss takes the opportunity to leap from the tree in the confusion, but she gets stung by some errant insects herself. At last, Peeta appears, but instead of killing her, he shoos her away.

Katniss gets far enough into the trees, even as I can tell from her eyes that she is hallucinating, before she swoons and falls in a dead faint on the forest leaves.


	16. Chapter 16: Sparks and Fireworks

**Chapter 16: Sparks and Fireworks**

Once again, it is Rue who saves my daughter's life, recovering her from the forest floor before another tribute can come across her. She takes her to a hidden cave and nurses her burns with a pasty leave like substance. I am familiar with the natural remedy, I have used it sometime on miners when no ointment or morphling is to be had.

Katniss takes a liking to the resourceful little girl, and they forge an alliance. By now, the field has culled further somewhat - Katniss's tracker jacker stunt killed the girl from 1. And the boy from 10 with the bad leg finally succumbed.

The two girls come up with a plan to spy on the surviving Careers. Peeta has deserted them since their skirmish with Katniss, but Cato has managed to bring on the boy from District 3. Rue sets fires that draw all but this little tribute away, while Katniss does surveillance of the giant stash of supplies that has been gathered into one pile and is just sitting there in broad daylight.

Someone could easily steal from the pile. And indeed, someone does, the Foxface girl from District 5. Although she puts on quite a show of jumps and leaps before swiping a backpack and taking off again. The boy from 3 does not notice that she was even there.

What does this mean? Why would such an interpretive dance be necessary for one little backpack? Unless...

"It's mined," we watch Katniss breathe from where the screens have captured her.

Of course. The bombs underneath the tribute pedestals that keep the tributes from moving too early at the start of the Games have been dug up and replanted around the loot.

This is all Katniss needs to know. She lets one arrow fly - a perfect shot that loosens a bag of apples.

Apples are enough to do the trick.

KABOOM! The whole pile blows up. Katniss is flung back, but aside from loss of hearing in her left ear - she keeps twitching it - she is completely unharmed. So is the boy from 3, though he's shaken.

He does not remain unharmed for long, though.

As my daughter disappears into the trees, an enraged Cato appears and snaps the failed guards neck without another thought.

We are at the Final Eight. Just several more deaths, and -

There is a scream. Rue's scream. Katniss goes running, even as Prim and I desperately try to warn her that it is a trap. Katniss has only just cut the little girl free from a net when -

Marvel, of all people appears out of nowhere. His spear goes for Katniss, but it hits Rue instead. After that, he doesn't stand a chance as Katniss shoots him through with an arrow. Rue tragically dies a long, drawn-out death, and Katniss sings her to sleep.

Suddenly, we have hurtled down to six tributes left in only a matter of days.

That night, Katniss is resting in a tree, when Claudius Templesmith announces a rule change. Both tributes can live if they are from the same district. I am shocked when Katniss's eyes fill with concern and she calls out Peeta's name.

* * *

The next morning, Katniss begins tracking her district partner.

What she doesn't know, and that Prim and I have learned through coverage is that Peeta was wounded in a fight with Cato, after which he deserted and seemed to vanish from the arena itself.

But the tracker in my daughter is able to pick up on a trail of blood that leads her to a river. She is startled by a camouflaged Peeta, who Katniss digs up. His one leg has been sliced badly, and the Healer in me knows it has to be treated with advance medicine. If left untreated for much longer, it could be susceptible to blood poisoning.

But as my daughter and the boy who loves her hobble their way to a cave to hide, I know that kind of medicine will be expensive and can only come from sponsors. How will they get it?

Peeta is beginning to spike a fever as the afternoon wanes on. I can tell he is gradually becoming delirious, for he starts to ramble aimlessly about how he first fell in love with my daughter on their very first day of school. Katniss seems absolutely horrified by this revelation. And guilty. I know why. How could anyone love someone like her, she must be wondering. My daughter knows all too well her flaws, and someone it makes her feel unworthy. Humbleness I the extreme.

Katniss finally hushes Peeta quiet and the two fall asleep platonically together after Haymitch manages to rustle up some soup for them. Soup is nice.

But where oh where is that damn medicine?


	17. Chapter 17: The Feast

**Chapter 17: The Feast**

Near midnight that evening, Claudius Templesmith booms out into the arena to make an important announcement: "Attention, tributes, attention: commencing at sunrise, there will be a Feast tomorrow at the Cornucopia. This will be no ordinary occasion: each of you needs something: desperately. And we plan to be generous hosts!"

Katniss and Peeta look at each other, my daughter's expression hard and grim. She works out the subtext insomuchas it applies to them immediately. "Your medicine."

"You're not going to go," Peeta shoots down.

"Yeah? Well, you need it and you can't walk," Katniss gives him lip. She has never, ever been one to let a man tell her what to do. To let anyone tell her what to do.

"Katniss, you're not going to risk your life for me; I'm not gonna let you!" Peeta grabs for her bow.

"You would do it for me... wouldn't you?" and there is something tentative in her voice. And also something behind her eyes. It is as if she is holding a secret that I don't know about. But from the look Peeta gives her, it is clear he does know. Or might know.

"Why are you doing this?" he breathes.

Katniss stares at him hard, almost glares at him. And before I have time to prepare myself for it, I see my daughter's gaze soften as she swoops down and gives Peeta a very deliberate kiss on the lips.

It is a milestone for a mother to witness or at least hear about their children's first kisses. I had long ago written off that possibility as far as Katniss is concerned. But even if I hadn't, I would have never imagined seeing my eldest experience her first kiss on national television. Indeed, Peeta is kissing her back as if he has been flagrantly and openly kissing my daughter all his life. As if she has been kissing him in return just as audaciously.

"Now there's no way I'm letting you go!" Peeta vows when Katniss draws away. He begs her to stay, and Katniss finally relents.

* * *

I should have known it was a ploy.

That evening, Peeta's condition declines rapidly. And worse yet, he is starting to catch a chill from the nights that are getting colder and colder. Katniss leaves their little cave in the wee hours of the morning, going to the Feast.

When the sun rises over the Cornucopia, a table rises up out of the grass. It has barely settled into place before a figure darts out of the horn itself and grabs a backpack and takes off running. Foxface!

Panicking, Katniss attempts to make sure that she is the one to grab her pack next. She barely gets to the table when Clove appears.

The girl from 2 throws a desperate knife at my girl, and she appears deranged; I wonder if Cato gave her express orders to kill Katniss. Katniss tries to shoot her but is tackled before she can place her arrow. The girls tussle and scream and roll around the ground - something I have never seen Katniss do. She has never stooped so low as to involve herself in a vicious catfight, not even with Prim, though the sisters have had their disagreements.

Clove pins Katniss and taunts her about both Peeta and Rue. She even lies when she claims, "Oh, yeah, we killed her." Actually, Marvel killed her. But then again... what if it was a planned attack by the whole Career pack. Depending on your point of view, Clove could either be lying or telling the truth. Which is it?

I don't get a chance to find out as a black blur bulldozes Clove off of Katniss and into the Cornucopia. Thresh heard everything - including the part about Rue.

"You said her name! You said her name!" he bellows, even as Clove tries to deny it. In a fit of rage, he gives her a gruesome death by bashing her head against the metal horn. Then he spins on Katniss.

But amazingly lets her go. "Just this time, Twelve! For Rue," and he takes off with his backpack, leaving Katniss to flee with hers.

That will be the only death today. Katniss returns to the cave with only a flesh wound from the night and injects the medicine into Peeta. When he wakes up, he insists on using the same medicine to heal Katniss's wound. Katniss actually smiles, touched at the tender gesture. Are her walls collapsing? Is she becoming more feminine and accepting of affection? Is she falling in love?


	18. Chapter 18: The Finale

**Chapter 18: The Finale**

By now, Prim and I have been forced out of our house and made to watch our family member on the screens in the Square. Now in the Top Five and in no danger of dying (yet), Katniss and Peeta have left their little cave, resolving to hunt the remaining tributes down one by one. Not since Haymitch Abernathy and Maysilee Donner have two District 12 tributes made it into the Top Five together.

For just a moment, the pair of lovers split up - Katniss to hunt, Peeta to gather berries. It is the only way he can make himself useful, as Katniss claims his tread is too loud for hunting.

As I watch my daughter, I suddenly hear a cannon. Her face on the screen dissolves into panic. "Peeta?"

I chance a glance at Steffan. I didn't see the death that caused the cannon. None of us did. Oh no...

Katniss goes pelting through the trees until she slams into a body. Thankfully, it belongs to a very much alive Peeta, and she bursts into tears in relief.

We soon find out who was the poor soul that perished. It is Foxface, and her demise is quite by accident and technically Peeta's doing. After setting aside from berries he'd foraged, Foxface must have stolen some after following our tributes for quite some time. Peeta confesses, "I had no idea she was following me."

Katniss brushes it off as an honest mistake, because Peeta unwillingly outfoxed her, picking poisonous berries by mistake. Katniss saves some in the hopes that, if the trick worked on Foxface, maybe it can work on Cato or Thresh as well.

Nightfalls seems to come suddenly on this eighteenth day in the arena. All at once, we hear a scream, and soon after, Thresh's face appears in the sky alongside Foxface's. Back in District 12, the entire square is on edge. Our strongest showing by both tributes ever, stronger even than Haymitch and Maysilee. Three tributes left... three tributes left...

The mutts attack without warning, chasing my daughter and her partner to the base of the Cornucopia. Both scale it, Peeta with difficulty due to the new limp in his leg, barely out-climbing the animals.

Unfortunately, there is still one animal left.

Cato attacks boldly and without mercy, the three tributes battling it out in a grand finale on the roof of the horn. Cato finally gets Peeta in a chokehold with Katniss aiming an arrow at the last Career's heart.

"Go on, shoot. Then we both go down and you win. Go on! I'm dead anyway," Cato begs. "I always was, right? I just wanted to bring pride to my district... not that it matters..."

Cato's soliloquy allows Peeta to direct Katniss clandestinely where to fire her arrow. And she does, right into Cato's hand, giving Peeta the chance to break free and hurl him off the horn to the waiting mutts below. Cato is ripped apart, and only a mercy killing from Katniss ends him.

District 12 has filled the Top Two. Which means we will have a Victor. The Square is already celebrating, even though we have no idea which of the two star-crossed lovers will come out on top.

Claudius Templesmith abruptly revokes the Rule Change - the rule change that I had completely forgotten about. This was a set-up. A set-up for the most dramatic final showdown in Games history.

But Peeta and Katniss don't let themselves get caught in the trap. They now gallingly threaten double suicide with the poisonous berries they dug up. In desperation, and now outfoxed and outboxed and outmaneuvered themselves, the Gamemakers proclaim them both Victors.

The entire Square erupts in approval. People stream out of there to run home and sleep soundly for the first time in 24 years, proclaim the good news. Prim and I are some of the last to leave, escorted back to the Seam by Steffan Mellark. I usher Primrose inside and to bed before turning to my old childhood friend.

"Will you go home and tell Paula?" She left during the Cornucopia battle, convinced Peeta's luck had finally run out and he would die.

"Yup," Steffan nods. "They did it, Lillian."

I smile. "They did it."

"Lillian?"

"Yes?"

Steffan bites his lip. "Come here." Then he pulls me into his arms and kisses me passionately on the lips.

In the middle of the night, on a deserted street, no one sees this stolen kiss. And no one sees me stiffen in shock before, suddenly, for a moment, accepting the gesture and winding my arms about Steffan, openly kissing him back. "Hmmmmm..." I moan. It's a good kiss. Almost as good as the many I shared with my husband.

Thinking of Estes makes me realize that this is a moment I have let happen for longer than I ever should have. I kiss Steffan for just a second more, and then gently nudge him away, breaking the kiss. Knowing that our kissing each other is wrong, and something that can never be.

But Steffan is only smiling. "Good night, Lillian. We'll be seeing each other more and more, thanks to our children." And he slips away into the night. I stare after him, before going into Primrose, hoping she did not witness her mother being unfaithful and kissing a married man.


	19. Chapter 19: Mother-Daughter Repairs

**Chapter 19: Mother-Daughter Repairs**

Katniss and Peeta have a romantic final interview with Caesar Flickerman, filled with kissing and sweet nothings. My daughter is in a frilly yellow dress and giggling like a little schoolgirl. I know it's fake; it has to be! That is not my Katniss...

They come home on the train with Haymitch. Prim and I meet them at the station with the Mellarks. Paula ignores me, which is normal for her, so I don't suspect that she has become in any way aware of the stolen kiss I shared with her husband.

Prim and I move with Katniss into the Victors' Village right away and set up our practice there. Peeta joins us, but alone; his family declined to come as they have plenty of resources down in Town at the bakery. At least now, poor Haymitch Abernathy won't be alone in exile any longer.

* * *

The summer melts into fall, and soon the fall freezes into a chilly winter. As a family, we have experienced worse, but this is the best one yet for us because we are rich beyond imagination for the first time in our lives.

That doesn't mean the chill doesn't find a way to enter our lives.

Just before Peeta and Katniss are to go on their Victory Tour, President Snow himself arrives at our doorstep. I am made, as the mother of the household, to serve the leader of our country cookies and tea, as he speaks to Katniss about serious matters behind closed doors. I do not hear anything of what is said, but judging from Katniss's shaken demeanor afterwards, whatever was said could not have been good.

Things only get worse when Cray is fired and we receive a new Head Peacekeeper without any warning or further explanation. The prostitution ring is busted up, and our new Head Peacekeeper, Thread, is much tougher on corruption. Gale Hawthorne learns this the hard way when he is arrested on the spot for trying to make a trade, and publicly whipped in the square. My daughter and her Victor friends intervene, and burst into our mansion carrying Gale on a board.

My Healer instincts take over and I spring into action, clearing away the table. "He needs morphling!" I tell a hysterical Katniss. "And a snow coat."

"Peeta - get the snow!" Prim orders. "I'll clean the herbs."

My hands shake unusually hard as I try to fill a syringe. "Mom, I'll do it," Prim takes over. And she ends up injecting Gale with a morphling. His head hits the table a moment later and his unconscious.

That evening, beside a blazing fire, I actually witness Katniss give Gale a gentle kiss after he awakens. At least poor Peeta didn't see it. The tender interaction makes me wonder yet again if what Katniss seemed to build up in the arena with Peeta was fake.


	20. Chapter 20: Eldest Girl Reaped Again

**Chapter 20: Eldest Girl Reaped Again**

As spring nears, the twist for the Third Quarter Quell, or 75th Hunger Games, is advertised as imminent in its announcement. It will be more than interesting, as the last time one was held, I was a teenager, unmarried and childless... and District 12's very own Haymitch Abernathy won the Crown.

President Snow announces it on live television one night in the Reading of the Card. "On the 75th anniversary, as a reminder that even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes are to be Reaped from their existing pool of Victors."

I let out a shriek. Prim buries her face in her hands. No... No...

I just got my eldest girl back, only to see her go back into the arena again. And she very well might team up with Peeta once more... or it could be Haymitch, the Victor of the previous Quell that was double in size.

* * *

I know why this twist was chosen. Well, it wasn't chosen, but it is too perfect. After the Victory Tour, Katniss told me of districts fighting against the Peacekeepers. Signs of disobedience. Even rebellion.

Or maybe there was some monkey-business around the Quell twist. Because it does sound too perfect. Destroying 23 emblems of hope for the districts. I can't help but think back to President Snow's visit... then the stunt with the berries... Is it possible that he considers the unrest that must be happening around the nation to be my daughter's fault?

The day of the Reaping dawns hot and sultry. With only three people to choose from (it would be four if old Cassiope was still alive, and now I wish with all my heart that she was), the Victors of District 12 are made to stand on stage. My eldest baby is Reaped again with little fanfare, but the district holds it breath over who her district partner will be this time.

"The male tribute from District 12... Haymitch Abernathy," Effie struggles to get out. Katniss looks up, horrified. And a moment later, I know why.

"I volunteer as tribute!" Peeta says almost blandly. Haymitch tries to stop him, but Peeta holds firm.

And just like that, our two kids who triumphed last year are back in the Games again. The worst part? Prim and I don't even get to say goodbye this time.

* * *

And this time, there will be no watching from the projector at home. Prim and I are made to watch all the Games coverage right beside the Mellarks in the front row. The Chariot Parade is dominated by our tributes again, once more in fiery accents.

The next three days are more bearable, as we only have to come to the Square in the evenings to watch. Cameras aren't allowed in the Training Center during the day, and they definitely wouldn't be allowed now, with former champions competing.

At the end of the three days, Katniss and Peeta both make history, pulling perfect scores of 12 each.

The fourth and final night is the interviews. Unlike last year, almost everybody stands out in my mind. There is the classic twin pair from District 1 who won when Katniss was little and Prim was a toddler. The male from 2, Brutus, looks a little older than Haymitch but is still in incredible shape. He volunteered for a much younger colleague for the arena, and he volunteered eagerly. Finnick Odair, the very handsome (even I can say that in my middle age!) man from District 4 who won ten years ago. His partner is in her 80s; she won even before Cassiope Fletch! Johanna Mason, the girl from 7 who won about three years before my girl by pretending to be a weakling. Woof Casino is also a peer of the deceased Cassiope, and his partner, Ceclia is a young mother herself. Daniel Bernhardt, the man from 9 and a peer of both Brutus and Haymitch, is a professional wrestler. Chaff, a man from 11 who won not long before Haymitch, is also in.

And almost every single Victor begins their interview by bravely, but subtly, criticizing the Quell that is giving them up to death a second time. By the time Katniss appears, in a beautiful white wedding dress, the audience nearly riots.

Then Peeta, as he is wont to do, lights the dramatic fuse. "I only wish the baby could live to be with Katniss and I."

The audience loses its cheese and crackers. The Victors join hands in a brazen display of solidarity before the feed can be cut to black.

President Snow will rain hellfire on them all come 10 in the morning tomorrow.


	21. Chapter 21: Quell, Day 1

**Chapter 21: Quell, Day 1**

Prim has to drag me out of bed and to the Square the first morning of the Quell. We stand by the Mellarks, dizzy from lack of sleep and slightly sick.

When the Jumbotron screens go live at 10 A.M. sharp, my heart plummets into my stomach.

The Cornucopia sits in the middle of a miniature sea, with rocky spokes jutting out from the island it sits on, trapping two tribute pedestals into each watery wedge. Katniss is paired off with Woof Casino, the 70-something grandpa from District 8, while Peeta is more dangerously matched up with Daniel Bernhardt of 9.

When the gong goes off, Katniss dives into the water, beats Brutus to the spoke where he has been in the next wedge over, and sprints for the island. She races Gloss on a parallel spoke for it, and beats him too, but only after he trips.

She reaches a bow and begins shooting tributes back, while not getting a fatal hit. Finnick Odair surprises her with an alliance and proves his worth by killing the man from 5 without a second thought. Then he goes the extra mile and saves Peeta from a tussle with Daniel Bernhardt that the young baker's son barely wins.

Collecting Mags, the 80-year-old partner of Finnick, this quartet escapes into the jungle surrounding the island and that makes up the rest of the arena. I only know it's a jungle from the botany lessons that Estes gave to me when we were married, before the children.

Meanwhile, the Bloodbath continues. Cannons continue throughout the day, as Districts 12 and 4 get farther and farther away. Peeta leads the band with a machete hacking at leaves. Things seem to have relaxed, become complacent.

In the Hunger Games, you should never get complacent.

"PEETA, NO!" Katniss cries out a warning, but it is too late. Peeta is suddenly blasted back, knocking the other three to the ground. He ran into the forcefield.

But the most incredible sight of the whole fiasco is how my daughter descends into absolute hysterics, like how she got when Gale was whipped only ten times worse. She even tries to fight Finnick off of Peeta, even as the handsome fisherman makes it clear he's trying to help. He does a very refined round of CPR - a practice that I have had to use on unconscious miners often - until Peeta comes back to life. Katniss bursts into relieved tears and kisses Peeta soundly on the lips of her own accord.

After that much excitement, the quartet nests right where they are for the evening. They are met at nightfall with eight faces in the sky. The man from 5. The man from 6. Woof and Cecelia from 8. Daniel from 9, as well as his district partner. The woman from 10. And Seeder from 11.

A parachute all at once floats down to the group. A gift from a sponsor! Katniss quickly finds out that the cylindrical object is a spile that can tap water from the trees. Water that the dehydrated tributes desperately need. Drinking their fill, they settle down to sleep, with my daughter taking the first watch.


	22. Chapter 22: Quell, Day 2

**Chapter 22: Quell, Day 2**

In the middle of the night, Katniss hears several odd BONGS in rapid succession. Back in the Square, we look at each other, just as baffled as she seems to be on the screen. Those don't sound like cannons.

Then, a mysterious mist snakes its way towards my daughter. She makes the mistake of touching it curiously... only to get seared with unimaginable pain. "RUN! RUN! The FOG IS POISON!"

Finnick leaps awake and carries a still-sleeping Mags over his shoulders, while Katniss supports Peeta. Their running soon turns into hobbles, as the mist seeps into their skin and makes their muscles not do what their masters want them to. When Katniss can't carry Peeta, as she has taken to doing with little success, Finnick attempts to pull off the Herculean effort of carrying both the boy and Mags. But even he falters. "I'm sorry, Mags," he apologizes. "I can't do it."

She kisses him. Just a simple little kiss on the lips and walks bravely into the fog, ignoring Finnick's calls of her name. The cannon sounds a moment later, and the remaining trio support each other's arms as they manage to half-run, half-hobble beyond the fog. Soon, they reach and area of the arena where the fog can go no further.

But their troubles do not end there. Peeta points up into the trees from where he is lying flat on his back. "Monk...eys..."

Orange monkeys clamber down from the trees and surround the small pond where the tributes have been purging the mist from their bodies. I can't quite tell what seemingly innocent motion sets the beasts off, but they soon are mountain a ferocious attack. Katniss shoots. Finnick stabs with his trident. Peeta hacks.

The three break away and make a mad dash for the beach. One monkey intercepts Peeta and I wonder if this is finally when the boy who loves my daughter falls when -

Another tribute gets in the way of the monkey lunging for Peeta. It is the female morphling from District 6; I didn't even see she was there. Katniss and Peeta escape, dragging her dying body to the beach, and holding her in the ocean waves until she dies. Finnick joins them, barely outrunning the monkeys, a moment later.

As the sun rises higher into the sky, a giant tidal wave silences a scream and elicits a cannon in the distance. Remembering how I actually did hear two other cannons during the night (it was hard to discern them from whatever that other noise was), I realize that only have of the field of 24 Victors remains.

Around midday, Finnick encounters three blood-red figures. "Johanna!"

"Finnick!" Johanna Mason kisses Finnick platonically and gestures to her two charges. They turn out to be the aging tributes from District 3. Rain in the form of blood deluged them during the night, and Johanna's partner hit the forcefield. Only there was no CPR to bring him back, like Peeta.

I can tell from my daughter's body language that she does not like Johanna, and it doesn't take long before the two young women engage in a catfight that Finnick has to break up. After cleaning up Wiress and Beetee, the tributes from District 3, the two merged trios take over the Cornucopia island with absolutely no resistance. Where are the Careers? Nobody knows.

Wiress's traumatized babbling soon helps Katniss to figure out what those bongs were for. They were chimes! Not cannons. The arena is a clock! The six set to work mapping out the dangers they know so far, Peeta drawing a diagram in the sand. "Well, it's much more than we knew yesterday, anyway."

That's when the Careers attack without warning. They get the drop on Wiress, but our group rallies quickly, responding in kind by wiping out Gloss and Cashmere, the twins from District 1. They even give chase to Brutus and Enobaria from 2.

That is, until the Cornucopia literally starts to spin.

By the time it crashes to a stop, Katniss and Beetee have been thrown clear of the island, but recover, thankfully not drowning. The surviving five regroup on the beach, where Beetee fondles a wire that he apparently took a knife in the back at the Bloodbath to get.

"Our next move, now that we're at the Final Eight, is to take care of Brutus and Enobaria," he announces.

That's right. We are at the Final Eight. These five, District 2 and... Chaff from District 11, Prim informs me helpfully.

Beetee comes up with an elaborate plan to rig a Lightning Tree that strikes with the plasmic substance every twelve hours - noon and midnight - and run the wire down to the wire, hoping to electrocute anything (and any tributes) in the immediate vicinity. The five take a vote and unanimously agree to the plan.

However, they are briefly interrupted by my youngest child's scream. Not beside me in the square, but on the _screen_. Katniss takes off running and after tracking the sound and shooting the source - a jabber jay - realizes the sound is fake. Finnick joins her, but is tricked by the scream of an unidentified woman, too. Both Victors are subjected to the painful cries of their loved ones for the next hour. I think I even hear my doctored voice among them. It makes me wonder just how much Katniss does care about me. I didn't think, given our frosty relationship in the past, that she cared that much...

Peeta consoles Katniss afterwards, and the quintet resume putting Beetee's plan into action. They plan to strike that night. At midnight.


	23. Chapter 23: Quell, Day 3

**Chapter 23: Quell, Day 3**

Beetee rigs the Lightning Tree very late on the end of that second day. He tasks Johanna and Katniss with running the wire down to the water. As the girls take off through the trees, it doesn't take long for something to go wrong. A flaw in the plan.

The Careers attack, cutting the wire. Johanna then turns on Katniss, knocking her out with the spool and then cutting her arm with her axe. Well, actually, she only dazes Katniss, and then luckily manages to lead Brutus and Enobaria away from my daughter.

Katniss, dazed and confused, stumbles to her feet and tries to find her way back to the Lightning Tree. There is suddenly a cannon. BOOM.

"Katniss?" Peeta's voice. It wasn't Peeta. Then, we see the screens cut over to Peeta fighting some male figure in the dark. I see a third male - dark-skinned - lying at their feet. Chaff is dead. And that adversary is much to big to be Finnick.

Another cannon. BOOM.

"KATNISS!" Peeta must have somehow killed Brutus - a man twice his size - in the dark.

Katniss now reaches the Lightining Tree to find a wounded Beetee. Thinking the alliance is over, she tries to shoot Finnick when he comes up, but he talks her out of it.

"Katniss... remember who the real enemy is!"

Katniss thinks about it. Then, rigging the last of the wire to one of her arrows, she shoots it into the arena forcefield just as the clock strikes midnight and the tree is hit with lightning.

The screens cut to black.

Almost immediately, we hear wheezes and explosions as bombs begin to rain down from on high. People scatter in a panic, screaming. Gale's voice is the only one that gets above the din!

"Everyone, to the forest! GO!"

Prim and I and several hundred others follow Gale to the district fence and the trees beyond. All at once, I realize there is someone not with us.

"Prim! Follow Gale!" Heart pounding, I sprint back to the bakery, where I find the Mellarks trying desperately to move things out of their already ablaze home. Steffan appears in the door.

"Steffan!" I yell.

"Lillian!"

KABOOM.

The explosion throws us both back several feet from the bakery that now disappears in a blaze of fire. I hit my head in the gravel street. When I come to, I see that Steffan is lying prone several yards from his demolished bakery. Underneath the rubble beyond, I can see Paula's dead body. I crawl over to Steffan and cradle him in my arms.

"Lillian... Lillian..." he croaks. "Run... take care of Prim... I love you. I always have and I always will."

My eyes fill with tears for this man who has always loved me, who entered a loveless marriage and yet still pined for me. Who betrayed his wife he never loved when he kissed me.

And so now I kiss him. Soundly on the lips and with all the strength I can muster. Steffan moans into my mouth and wrap his arms about me with the last of his strength.

"Hmmm..." I hum in pleasure as I clutch him close. I even sensuously part his lips for me and slip my tongue into his mouth.

I feel Steffan's lips grow cold against mine, feel his body grow limp in my arms as his spirit is taken away. I lay his body back in the street and close his eyes.

And then I run for the fence. For freedom. For the unknown.


	24. Chapter 24: War Healer

**Chapter 24: War Healer**

All told, Gale managed to save about 800 people from District 12. And also feed those same 800 people for several weeks in the woods, with only a few brave others helping him hunt.

We wander aimlessly through the woods until we reach a far more desolate landscape devoid of trees and other natural wildlife. Here is where we are picked up by the once-thought-dead District 13: the heart of the Rebellion.

And here is where I am reunited with my warrior of a daughter at last. She was rescued from the arena by the rebels, alongside Finnick Odair and Beetee Latier. Peeta was not so lucky; he was captured by the Capitol.

And I am distressed to see my eldest girl almost unable to function due to how crestfallen she is. My poor, sweet girl. Without even realizing it, she has done what she once vowed she would never do. She has fallen in love.

I guess, therefore, that I shouldn't be as surprised as I am when Katniss declines to join Prim and I in the apartment District 13 has set aside for us. She gets a quarters all her own, a level or so below us. Living underground takes some getting used to, but we make the best of it. And there are plenty folks who need Healing.

Like the rebels getting more serious wounds every day. Like Katniss's old prep team from the Games, whom my daughter brings to me almost in tears. Crying is deeply uncharacteristic of Katniss; I don't think it was until she entered the Games that I ever saw her cry before. "Mama, help them, please!" She begs.

"Calm down, Katniss. Let me see what I can do..." One look at their injuries and I know: these poor people have been tortured. But I don't dare tell Katniss that, as it will only make us both wonder if - heaven forbid! - Peeta is suffering the same fate.

I even have to treat my own daughter, after she is sent out to rally rebels in District 8 and some deranged yahoo shoots her. Only bulletproof clothing saves her, but I keep her overnight anyway in the ward I now command.

Getting back to Peeta, my suspicions that he is being mistreated are confirmed when I see a very gaunt version of him in an interview with Caesar Flickerman. I try to keep the program from my firstborn, but to no avail. Seeing that Peeta is at least alive seems to have a profound effect on her. I used to get that almost emotional relief in my countenance whenever Estes would come home safe from the mines. Yup, my eldest is in love, all right.

But it is what Peeta suddenly is moved to say that is most shocking. "They're coming, Katniss... you'll be dead by morning!" He barely gets it out before rough hands drag him off-camera.

President Coin, the leader of District 13, has us evacuate into the bomb shelters of the lowest levels immediately. My girls and I barely get there, but after we hear bombs dropping harmlessly on the empty world above, we realize Peeta Mellark bravely saved our lives.


	25. Chapter 25: My Hijacked Son-in-Law

**Chapter 25: My Hijacked Son-in-Law**

It is with great joy when the love of my daughter's life is finally rescued. But only great sadness quickly follows when we realize he is not the man he once was.

Where there was once love for my striking beauty of a child, there is now only irrational hatred. Peeta thinks Katniss is a mutt that is out to kill him. Tracker jacker venom and their hallucinations are suspected as the culprit.

I am one of the leaders in trying to study and heal him, along with Prim and Beetee. In kissing Steffan goodbye that horrible, final night, I made a silent promise that I would look after his surviving son, if given the opportunity. I intend to keep this promise, even if I could not promise to marry Steffan all those years ago.

Progress is slow and incremental. By the time the following spring rolls around, Peeta is far less dangerous to himself and others, but he is still very confused about the accuracy of his own memories. Our slow improvement must infuriate Katniss - the one who wants her Peeta back - to the point where she decides to go with a team to storm the Capitol itself. Controversially, Peeta is allowed to go with her.

Katniss comes to visit me the night before she is shipped out. "Goodbye, Mama," she hugs me in a far more tender way than she might have even just a couple of months ago: "I love you."

I let her admission of love ring in my ears as my daughter, the Mockingjay and leader of the Rebellion, march with purpose out of my apartment. I am uncertain whether I will ever see her again, or if she will survive this final Game. But if she does, I send up a prayer that she and Peeta can find each other, perhaps one day Toast the bread and get married and be together at last in a world much better than the one I inherited.


	26. Chapter 26: Youngest Girl Killed

**Chapter 26: Youngest Girl Killed**

My tears stain the words I refuse to accept as true. My hands shake as I try to hold and process the letter I have just received.

The letter telling me that my Primrose - my baby! - was killed in the line of duty. She died a hero, doing what she loved and what she was best at, which was Healing others.

The war is over. Snow is dead, and so is Coin. Katniss is alive, but imprisioned and awaiting trial in the Capitol. Peeta survived too, apparently. The boy who is practically my son-in-law, even if he has yet to make my firstborn his bride.

First Estes, now Prim. I can't go on like this! I have to get away from here!

So I pack up my belongings and vacate my apartment in Thirteen. I leave a note for Katniss with Effie Trinket. A note telling my only child left goodbye. "Will you see that she gets it?"

"Of course, Mrs. Everdeen," she smiles gently.

I board the first train I encounter, using up all the money I have left. However far this last fare takes me, that is where I will get off and start my life anew.


	27. Chapter 27: Stranger in a Strange Land

**Chapter 27: Stranger in a Strange Land**

I wander through the dirt streets of District 4. When I got on the train at District 12, I promised myself that I would only go as far as what little money I had would take me. I guess this is my stop.

I can hear strange birds cawing to each other. The crash of the beach as I walk along the shore. How strange. I have never seen the ocean before. And yet, it is one of the only landmarks still here. The only other one I can see is the Victors' Village - or what used to be the district's Victors' Village - standing on a hill. It once used to stand, proud and silent. But it isn't anymore.

District 4 looks further in disarray than even District 12 did. There are not many buildings still standing, and few that are have yet to re-open, it appears. Some surviving structures still look abandoned. Not even the Justice Building made it. Which makes me wonder just who is in charge here? Of this district? So, since the Victors' Village is one of the few institutions left standing, I decide to lug my suitcase there.

The place looks like a ghost town. I hear that District 4 produced six Victors, so it must have been, at one time, much busier than the Village in 12 ever was. But even the houses that look like they have been lived in seem abandoned now. Fallen to neglect.

Except one. There are lights on in only one house. So I shoulder my things, bravely approach the front stoop and knock.

The woman who answers the door is very pretty. She has striking red hair and deep green eyes, and she carries a baby in one arm. I seem to recognize her... she was originally Reaped to go in with Katniss for the Third Quarter Quell, but that old woman took her place.

And from the way this girl peers at me, it is clear she must think that I am familiar, too... Though I can't imagine how.

"You're Katniss Everdeen's mother, aren't you?"

Oh, right. As the mother of the Mockingjay and hero of the Rebellion, I suppose I would have gotten some publicity. I shrug. "And a refugee like most others. I need to start my life anew, and a change of scene might be the best way to do that." I don't mention how, having lost one child, I can't seem to look my other one in the face. But Peeta will take care of Katniss. And so will Haymitch Abernathy.

Annie doesn't ask questions, except to confirm that I was a Healer in my district. Thrown by the question, I blink. "Yes..."

"Come with me!" And she takes me right to the probably the one other building in all of District 4 still in operation: the hospital.

The facility is still treating some of the last patents injured in the war. There is much work to be done.

"Dr. Lambert!" Annie calls to a man who seems to be about my age, maybe a little older. And I'm only 42! "It's Katniss Everdeen's mother! She can help! She's a Healer!"

Oddly, I find myself flushing. Dr. Lambert is very handsome, in a rugged kind of way. Pepper-gray hair, stocky build. And eyes as green as Annie's. He beams when he sees me. He asks me a few questions about my skills. I don't realize that I just went through an interview until he hires me on the spot.

* * *

I have been in District 4 for nearly a year now. Already, I have risen through the ranks at the hospital, becoming second-in-command to Andrew. That's Dr. Lambert. Even though we are colleagues, we have come to talk almost like old friends. There are some things you cannot do without liking each other, and keeping people alive is one of them. I suppose such bonds of friendship could be forged in a fight to the death, like my eldest girl went through, but Katniss has always conducted herself differently from me. A lot like her father, in fact. Although, I have no idea where she got her sometimes cold and distant attitude. Certainly not from Estes, my late husband. And I hope she didn't get it from me.

Another fisherman has been brought in again. Harpoon through his leg. As we leave the war behind and begin to pursue normalcy, fishing accidents are pretty standard fare these days. "Hold him down, please!" I order my doctors. I fill the syringe with morphling without flinching and administer it. It will dull the pain... enough to yank the harpoon out of the fisherman's leg. I then apply a coat of paste to cool the burning that will surely come. This man will have to stay here for at least overnight. Seal up the hole in his leg from the wound to stop the bleeding, and then we're done!

Dr. Lambert - Andrew, I should say - nods in approval from where he is watching. "You have more skills than most of my staff here!" I blush at his praise. "Where did you learn?"

I shrug. "I was an apothecary's daughter for many years. When I married my husband... my family disowned me. Class issues, you know."

Andrew looks dismayed. "I wouldn't know. Class lines have never seemed to be a problem here in Four."

I move on. "So I opened my own Healing practice, because Estes wasn't making nearly enough money for two small children." Mentioning my baby girls makes my eyes prick with tears. Andrew lays a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"We have all heard of Primrose's bravery. I am so sorry."

I like how she says her full name. Primrose. I never did like Prim as a nickname, though I rolled with it because Katniss didn't seem to mind. Still... "Primrose was supposed to be my successor. My eldest girl..." I find myself chuckling. "She could never stay composed at the sight of blood. And she won the Hunger Games, for heaven's sake!"

Andrew laughs. "Katniss has her own skills and strengths, I'm sure."

I blink, struck by his compliment. That's so nice... "Yes. She does."


	28. Chapter 28: Embrace Someone New

**Chapter 28: Embrace Someone New**

I am heading down the hall one day in my Healer's uniform. I find the required dress code largely ridiculous, as I didn't impose such rules on myself back in 12. But Andrew insists on his staff looking and acting their best, so for him, I would do that.

All at once, Andrew appears. He looks panicked.

"What's wrong?" I ask. "Is it a patient...? Andrew!"

But Andrew is dragging me into a storage closet and closing the door. "Andrew? What's the matter?"

"I need to ask you something!" he gets out. His voice is breathy, almost choked, as if it is a struggle to get the words out. He looks very nervous. I've never seen Andrew this nervous.

I laugh nervously myself. "OK..." I grin.

"Would you like to go to dinner with me sometime... Lillian?" He asks. His eyes are searching, waiting for me to say No.

But I stare at him, smiling bemusedly. "I think you just asked me out on a date," I observe.

"It doesn't have to be that!" Andrew says quickly, as if I might be offended by the word.

"No, I think it's fine," I laugh. "Sure. Let's do that."

Andrew looks elated. Then, suddenly, he pulls me closer and kisses me. Right on the mouth.

I stiffen in his embrace for only a moment. I have never kissed another man besides my first husband. But Andrew's lips are soft and warm. And they are not insistent. He seems to be leaving this up to me, getting ready to pull away should I feel displeased at his boldness.

But I'm not. And I don't let him pull away. I kiss him back instead.

I drape my arms around his neck and close my eyes in pleasure. Encouraged, Andrew's hands wander, up under my uniform, until he is touching very sensitive areas. I let him hoist me up onto a stack of boxes and allow him to feel me up as I divest myself of my uniform. I hate the thing anyway!

Once upon a time, Estes dragged me out to the smokehouse behind our home. It was the middle of winter. He had me there. Thinking back on it, I am convinced that was the counter in which we conceived Primrose. Only who should appear but our little girl, Katniss, just three years old. Seeing something a baby her age was not meant to see, she began to cry. She thought Daddy was hurting Mommy. I gently explained to her that Daddy was doing what he was doing to me because he loved me. She would understand when she was older.

So now, as I kiss this other man and begin to have sex with him, as I let him fill my most feminine of places, I am so glad that my one surviving daughter is far, far away in District 12, unable to see how naughty her mother is being...

"Uh... UH! Yes, Andrew! Harder... faster..." His thrusts increase in speed as he complies. I am now stark naked, my blouse having slipped down past my cleavage.

Just then, the door bangs open. I don't see my daughter, but I do see a young woman who has become like a daughter to me. And her mouth is now open in utter shock. I pull Andrew close in an attempt to cover myself, but he doesn't appear to have seen the intruder.

"Oh, Annie! What's... what's wrong, love?"

She shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. "There's a patient who needs a morphling dose. But I cab get it if you're... busy..."

This doesn't appear to concern Andrew, as he takes one of my breasts into his mouth, forcing me to arch into him. "I'll be right there, dear!" I gasp.

* * *

After-hours, Andrew and I spend a lot more time together. Annie graciously allowed me a house in Victors' Village - one of the empty ones, as the homes that used to hold her fellow Victors are now museums. From there, I can see the ocean, and it's not a far walk down to the shore, either. Here, Andrew and I spend our evenings, walking along the beach and talking. They are good dates, better than a fancy dinner. I have never been used to having such plenty and food before, as for years, I was as poor as a church mouse. But I had Estes, and then my girls, so it didn't matter so much to me.

The fisherman are long gone for fishing season, so I am shocked when Andrew suddenly kneels in the sand as one of them would before leaving on a long voyage. Those kind of requests usually occur just before fishing season, but I have only ever had one request like this before. Well, actually two requests, and they were both back in District 12. I can't think of the first one without feeling sad... and thinking of Peeta, that poor boy now all alone...

So for the third time I find myself breathing "Oh my God!" as Andrew asks:

"Will you marry me, Lillian?"


	29. Chapter 29: The Wedding and the Baptism

**Chapter 29: The Wedding and the Baptism**

It is sunset on a beautiful summer's evening. Andrew brings his face very close to mine. Hesitant at first, I reach up to him and meet him halfway in a passionate kiss. Slowly, as Andrew's tongue slips in between the opening split, my mouth curves into a smile against his. A new life. A new promise.

Instantly, Andrew picks me, his new wife, up and begins to carry me towards a flat-bottomed boat, as fisherman cheer and begin to sing the traditional wedding song: _"I tell ya of young men in black-and-white coats, and it's say, to the port side, heave ho. You'll cart your bride off in a flat-bottomed boat to mysterious fathoms below."_

I laugh, and manage to wriggle out of my second husband's kiss, before dunking him in the water. That's the other wedding tradition that most people in District 4 don't talk about. Like it is tradition for the bride to be carried away to a flat-bottomed boat, so too is it tradition for the groom to get dunked.

"Wait, there's one more thing!" I cry and I turn to Annie. "Annie, fetch me a piece of bread from my kitchen, would you?"

She returns a moment later to see that I have actually started a fire, using driftwood from the beach. I toast the bread she gives me, and then I prompt my new husband to share it with me, before pulling him to me and kissing him soundly.

" _Now_ , we're married," I tell him. "No one from Twelve feels really married until after a Toasting." The people of Four are intrigued. But I am a woman from District 12 at heart. I have to maintain that tradition

"Shall I call Katniss and Peeta with the great news?" Annie asks.

"Better make it a letter. And no, don't mention to my daughter that I have gotten married. But you can still write them," I advise.

* * *

Andrew moves into the home in Victors' Village with me after our honeymoon. It is a nice place to be and good to give Annie and her small son, Finn, some neighbors. Our house also serves as an effective place to bring patients after-hours, in the event of an emergency.

Today is the day of Finnick Odair Jr.'s baptism and my daughter and Peeta have been chosen as the godparents. My husband and Annie and the baby and I are standing at the District 4 train station, to greet the engine from Twelve.

They are all here. Katniss, with Peeta and Haymitch in tow. I give my surviving daughter from my first marriage an awkward hug, and we waltz down through town and to the beach. The baptism will take place in the ocean, as is District 4 tradition.

Introductions are at last in order. I watch nervously as Andrew introduces himself to Katniss. "I'm Dr. Andrew Lambert. You must be Katniss. I've heard so much about you."

Katniss frowns, confused, so I bravely clarify by referring to Andrew as "My new husband."

Katniss now stares between us in bewilderment and deep mistrust. Also... hurt. Of not being told of the wedding. Anger. She actually glowers at Andrew. Refuses to shake his hand. There is a painful silence.

"More brandy?" Haymitch suddenly bellows. I didn't think he was that drunk as he thrusts himself into the space where my husband and daughter are conspicuously not shaking hands and sticking his liquor bottle almost right up Andrew's nose. Then he rounds on Katniss, sounding more like her father than Estes ever did. "And, Sweetheart, I think it's high time you go somewhere private to change. You are _not_ baptizing your godson looking like you just went on one of your hunts! You should have changed on the train!"

Katniss sends him a look that could split stone before turning on her heel and flouncing up to Annie's mansion. Finn coos and squirms in Annie's arms, trying to reach his godmommy, whom he must think is very pretty. Annie and Peeta dither after Katniss, talking in low whispers.

"That Haymitch is... quite a character," Andrew marvels after Haymitch stumbles a distance away.

I smile wanly. "You'll never be bored, Andrew. But that man is smarter than he looks. He can do brilliant feats even when he is drunk. He saved Katniss's life."

When Katniss returns in a beautiful blue dress that matches the tide, she exchanges fiery words with Haymitch. "Why did you call me out in front of my mother?"

"Why are you being such a bitch?" Haymitch volleys back in almost a dead-pan. I see Peeta try not to laugh.

"Who gets married again and then doesn't tell her daughter? Is that something someone hides?" Katniss demands. "I want to know!"

"All right; that's enough! Both of you!" Peeta breaks it up. "We should all be very happy for Mrs... Everdeen's, I mean Lillian's... new marriage."

Katniss places a hand on his chest and actually kisses him. Her eyes are full of something I never thought I'd see in her: love. "Always the peacemaker," she actually smiles appreciatively.

Katniss is a little nervous and emotional when she is tasked with holding Finn. But she kneels in the tide and allows the priest to baptize the baby. Then, she and Peeta stand with their godson on the shore. Katniss actually covers Finn with kisses, as Peeta embraces them both.

"I've tried to tell her she'd be a good mother, but she won't listen to me. And she won't listen to the boy," Haymitch slurs from where he stands next to me.

He's actually right, as I suddenly gasp and become teary at the sight of what could easily be a family. Katniss would be a great mother. Better than I ever was to her.


	30. Chapter 30: Give Me Grandbabies

**Chapter 30: Give Me Grandbabies**

Katniss eventually accepts my new marriage to Andrew and welcomes him into the family. And a good thing, too, because before we know it... there is another Everdeen wedding.

I always thought that Primrose would be the one I got married in. The dress I wore to marry her and Katniss's father. I wore a simpler gown when I wed Andrew. I never imagined my eldest girl would take a husband. And yet, here I am, dressing Katniss to be a bride and admiring her beauty in the mirror.

The ceremony is simple, held in the living room of the old Everdeen mansion in District 12's Victors' Village. Andrew and I are there, along with Haymitch and Effie and a few surviving Victors (only seven total a made it through the war) to see Katniss Toast the bread and kiss a healed Peeta, her handsome groom.

* * *

I get to visit Katniss as often as I am able to get away from the hospital. Andrew will take over calls just to get me to go down there; he thinks it's important.

I think Katniss and I are finally in a good, loving place with each other, after all these years. Indeed, my daughter is opening up more and more to me. Sometimes baring her soul. As she does one day at her kitchen table while Peeta is out at his family's rebuilt bakery.

"I'm such a horrible wife, Mother! I know Peeta wants children; I can see it in his eyes! But babies always meant Reaped tributes to me, and still scare me! But the Games are over! What should I be afraid of? I'm just a selfish bitch! Peeta doesn't deserve to be married to me!"

"Katniss: enough," I soothe her. "Peeta loves you regardless of what you are able to give him. But it might do you good to think of all he has done for you, and ponder if having his baby is the best way to repay him. Ready or not, wanted or not, a baby is a big commitment and responsibility. But Peeta wants to handle it. Trust yourself to try and take it on to, at least for his sake. Besides:" and here I emphasize. "Give me Grandbabies!"

* * *

Katniss does. She falls pregnant twice with Peeta's children, eventually giving birth to a girl and a boy. Though it takes her five, ten, fifteen years of cajoling from Peeta to agree. He did want them so badly.

I learn all about how they are happy and play in the Meadow beyond 12, from the letters Katniss writes to me. The letters I read curled up in my second husband's lap, listening to the waves of the ocean crash upon the shore. What a journey I've had! What a journey we have all had.


End file.
